Thursday, 31 October 2019

Building approvals continue to trend down

Units slump

Unit approvals continued to slump across each of the major capital cities in September.


In particular, the high-rise sector continues to get smashed lower as confidence has been shredded.


On the plus side, in real time detached house approvals may be forming a base in most cities, although Sydney continues to slide. 


Despite booming population growth, only one city has approvals running at record high levels: Hobart.  


There was one other modestly brighter point in the data, being a recent surge in non-residential building work approved in New South Wales.

This was related to the NSW Health 'hospitals building bonanza', which is expected to see $8 billion invested over a 4-year rollout period to develop new and upgrade existing facilities.  


There was also some slightly better data for regional Australia, which saw total seasonally adjusted dwelling approvals bounce to 14,000, up from a cycle low of just 13,000 in August. 


Overall, though, the trend for approvals remains down - driven by attached dwellings - and annual approvals continued to fall to 177,000, down from 227,000 a year earlier.